I am from Germany and I heard here from you today the first time. I am very interested in your story about Salome (“And Salome Danced”). I’m going to write a short text about her and her story in fact of the bible-text because I’m studying literature. Now I found the comment that your story is out of print here in Germany. I loaded it down now in English from your homepage. Do you or your publisher know where I can get it in German?
So I will read next time and hope I can talk to you about it and about the thoughts behind it.
Love, Steph
I’ve sent you a scan of the German text by email. I have no idea whether the German translation captures the nuances of the story (and I don’t know if we’d be able to figure it out between us, but it would be fun to talk about it). I read enough French to know that the French translation made some language and metaphor choices that I found really interesting – not wrong, just interesting. Some things just don’t translate directly – cultural references, slang, and the more subtle differences in worldview that a native language creates as we absorb it. These issues interest me in particular since I’m studying to be an interpreter of American Sign Language. If there are so many subtle (and not so subtle) worldview and assumption differences between spoken languages, imagine the difference that might arise between a spoken language and a signed language. And how do translators and interpreters make decisions about expressing meaning in light of those differences? Oof, there goes my brain.
I do hope you’ll let me know what you think of the German text.
Sweet! This is my cup of tea (in Spanish, the expression goes, este es mi mero mole, which is something like, ‘this is my very one sauce’). Translation is tricky, more so because it has to take meaning from one culture and into another. It’s not enough to exchange one word for another.
The following passage, which could be titled “When translation goes bad” to tie in with the other post on your Pint today, is a review by John H.R. Polt of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s novel GalÃndez, which appeared in The New York Times Book Review circa 1992.
–passage begins–
“Whatever one may think of GalÃndez, it does not deserve what the translators (names have been omitted) have done to it. Thy fall into every linguistic trap (thus conferencia, ‘lecture,’ is translated as ‘conference’); they have a shaky command of Spanish syntax, vocabulary, and even geography (‘at Aragon’ and ‘at Ebro” as though these were towns). Would any American talk about ‘North American poetry’? About ‘Cordell Hull’s woman’? Since when is a prosecutor a ‘fiscal attorney’? Or a bookworm a ‘library rat’? The list of blunders could go on and on. Even the translators’ English is substandard. Do we ‘pull one over on people,’ feel ‘nauseous,’ step ‘off of’ a sidewalk, send things ‘to whomever remains’? Can you imagine, in 1988, calling your cleaning woman ‘a very conscientious negress’? It is incomprehensible that a respectable publisher should accept this scandalous translation and print it unedited without consulting someone who knows Spanish.”
–passage ends–
I would lock myself up for two months and weep if anything I translated got a review like that. That is why translators, at best, become ghosts and ,at worst, are marked as traitors (from the ItalianTraduttore, Traditore).
Kelley, could you email me the French translation when I’m done with “And Salome Danced” (not before, because I’d be too curious to peek and so be influenced by such a close language to Spanish). Also, is there already a Spanish translation you know of for it?
Oh, typos. I would “lock myself up,” not “luck myself up”. There are more, but I just had to correct that one. It would be a very unlucky thing to leave it as-is.
There are no Spanish translations of any of my work, that I’m aware of.
I can scan the French and send it, but you’ll have to remind me (brain like a sieve right now, all the details are rotting it and everything is leaking out…)
I fixed “lock” in your original comment. Oh, the power! I can change people’s words after they write them. I am the god of my blog. Bwahaahaaa!
One beer, some dinner, a really luscious nectarine and some Duran Duran has made me punchy. I must be more tired than I thought.
Thank you, godmistress of the blog. Now bad luck will remain locked up.
Luscious nectarine… hmmmmm, me wants.